“Then if you find something practicable, utilize it.”
Kennedy took his friend to a statue-shop where he used to pass some of his hours. The shop was in a lane near the Forum, and its stock was in antiques, majolicas, and plaster casts of pagan gods.
The shop was dark and rather gloomy, with a small court at the back covered with vines. The proprietor was an old man, with a moustache, an imperial, and a shock of white hair. His name was Giovanni Battista Lanza. He professed revolutionary ideas and had great enthusiasm about Mazzini. He expressed himself in an ironical and malicious manner.
Signora Vittoria, his wife, was a grumbling old woman, rather devoted to wine. She spoke like a Roman of the lowest class, was olive-coloured and wrinkled, and of her former beauty there remained only her very black eyes and hair that was still black.
The daughter, Simonetta, a girl who resembled her father, blond, with the build of a goddess, was the one that waited on customers and kept the accounts.
Simonetta, being the manager, divided up the profits; the elder son was head of the workshop and he made the most money; then came two workmen from outside; and then the father who still got his day’s wages, out of consideration for his age; and finally the younger son, twelve or fourteen years old, who was an apprentice.
Simonetta gave her mother what was indispensable for household expenses and managed the rest herself.
Kennedy retailed this information the first day they went to Giovanni Battista Lanza’s house. Cæsar could see Simonetta keeping the books, while the small brother, in a white blouse that came to his heels, was chasing a dog, holding a pipe in his hand by the thick part, as if it were a pistol, the dog barking and hanging on to the blouse, the small boy shrieking and laughing, when Signora Vittoria came bawling out.
Kennedy presented Simonetta to his friend Cæsar, and she smiled and gave her hand.
“Is Signore Giovanni Battista here?” Kennedy asked Signora Vittoria.